FRENCH INDUSTRY

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23014, 4 October 1944, Page 5

FRENCH INDUSTRY

Nationalisation Plans

(7.30 pan.) LONDON. Oct. 3. Plans for the nationalisation of 'a considerable part of French industry, including arms manufacture, and the "beginning of a new era of planned economy” were announced by General de Gaulle. He said in modern times Governments were better fitted than individuals to employ the riches of the earth.

General de Gaulle is touring France in a hope of assessing the local reaction to the recent decree nationalising the mines of the Nord and Pas de Calais. Judging by the tone of the new "revolutionary Press” this first step does not go far enough. Mr Churchill’s speech is being widely discussed by French people, many of whom are at a loss to understand why full recognition of the de Gaulle Government is still withheld. One of the foremost de Gaullist journals. ’‘Combat," states: ’’Allied distrust has two sources—opposition .o the person of General de Gaulle himself, and a belief that the Resistance Movement was entirely Communist. From these factors the idea arises that nothing can be done before the elections are hei,d in which General de Gaulle might be disavowed and the old parties established in their former position.”